Matthews shut down Thompson in 114-91 win over Warriors

DALLAS – With no Steph Curry to worry about Wednesday night, the Dallas Mavericks turned to Game Plan No. 2 and quickly concentrated their efforts on containing Golden State Warriors shooting guard Klay Thompson.

That meant Wesley Matthews was the lucky person who drew the defensive assignment to slow down Thompson. And that assignment paid off handsomely as Thompson was held to a mere 10 points on 4-of-15 shooting, and the Mavs went on to cruise to a 114-91 victory over the defending world champion Warriors in front of a sellout crowd of 20,494 at American Airlines Center.

Curry, who leads the NBA with 30.5 points per game, sat this one out with a bruised lower left leg. That made it much easier for Matthews to shadow Thompson and make him uncomfortable during the time he was on the court.

"We had Matthews on (Thompson) to start the game,’’ coach Rick Carlisle said. "And he was on him pretty much exclusively unless he went out of the game and (Devin) Harris was in.

"In that case, Harris was going to take him. We either had a big guy with tenacity, or a quick guy on him, and both of those guys are great defenders.’’

The Mavs weren’t going to try and hide behind the fact that without Curry, the Warriors were at a major disadvantage. Teams don’t operate the same when the league’s Most Valuable Player is sitting on the bench in blue jeans and a sports coat.

"(Thompson) missed some shots he normally makes and the geometry on the floor is not quite the same without Curry,’’ Carlisle said. "Things were a little harder for him, too.

"But we wanted to just make sure we kept pressure on him, and I thought the guys did a good job.’’

This is just the second loss of the season for the Warriors, who started the season 24-0 and are now 29-2. Meanwhile, the Mavs won for the fourth straight time and stretched their record to 18-13 going into a New Year’s Day game in Miami.

"I thought we played a solid game throughout defensively,’’ said Harris, who scored 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting off the bench. "I thought we were active all night.

"Offensively we really moved the ball and played for one another. When we play this type of way we can be really good.’’

J. J. Barea led the Mavs with 23 points, with nine of them coming in the first quarter when the Mavs set the tone with a menacing style of play. Barea finished the night with nine field goals in 12 attempts, including a 5-of-7 showing from the 3-point line.

Also for the Mavs, Dirk Nowitzki had 18 points and eight rebounds, Matthews collected 13 points and made 3-of-4 baskets from 3-point territory, and Dwight Powell contributed 10 points in 25 minutes.

But the player who set a nasty physical tone for the Mavs was center Zaza Pachulia, who brought his lunch pail to work again and produced his 17^th double-double of the season. Pachulia finished with 14 points and a game-high 15 rebounds in just 24 workmanlike minutes.

"Everybody was excited for this game, first of all,’’ Pachulia said. "Everybody was waiting for this game – the last game of the year and playing against the world champs.

"Not only with Steph Curry, who is the MVP, but they’re a helluva team. But we were hyped up for tonight’s game, and from the beginning of the game the energy and the effort was there.’’

The Mavs – not the Warriors – set a fast tempo that the visitors had a difficult time keeping up with. The pace was so effective that the Mavs led by as many as 30 points (83-53) with 5:04 remaining in the third quarter.

"We are really good when we play with pace and we don’t let teams sit on our plays and play random basketball,’’ Harris said. "We move and create a great shot for one another, create a problem and try to get a great shot each time down the floor.

"I thought we’d been doing a better job of that.’’

The Mavs converted 14-of-27 shots from beyond the 3-point arc and shot 51.2 percent from the field overall as Carlisle tied the late Chuck Daly for 21^st place in the NBA in career wins with 638.

With the Warriors dressing just 10 players because of injuries, the Mavs knew this was a perfect opportunity to pounce on the league’s best team.

"We just wanted to make it hard on their best players and we wanted to keep coming at them with our depth,’’ Carlisle said. "From start to finish the guys did a really good job.

"We didn’t play a perfect game. But we did the kinds of things that you need to do in this kind of a situation to take advantage of it.’’

Dwain Price can be heard every Wednesday from 3-4 p.m. on dfwiradio.com

This story was originally published December 30, 2015 at 11:34 PM with the headline "Matthews shut down Thompson in 114-91 win over Warriors."